


A Hop and A Skip and A Jump

by herekittie



Series: To Get to Where They Are, First You Must Know Where They Have Been [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Implied Violence, Iverson's a dick, Pre-Canon, Shiro and Keith have an aunt, she's an OC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-10 14:36:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8920849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herekittie/pseuds/herekittie
Summary: It starts with a love for the space and stars, and ends in this:“I’m going to the Galaxy Garrison,” Shiro announces one day during dinner.Their aunt nods. “I would’ve been worried if you didn’t.”“I want to go to the Galaxy Garrison,” Keith says.Their aunt laughs, corners of her eyes crinkling. “Never expected anything else.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Shirogane Akane is an OC and Shiro's aunt. In this series, Keith is adopted by her but chose to keep his last name.
> 
> I wasn't going to post this until I had Lance's up but it's the new year so heck it. Also posting at this time was probably not the best idea but also heck it.
> 
> It's interesting to me that fandom as a whole headcanons Keith as a orphan, so I wanted to try something a little different. That's also my reason for making Hunk an orphan, if anybody's curious.
> 
> Beta by [fickleauthor](http://archiveofourown.org/users/fickleauthor/).
> 
> Promo posts on [tumblr](http://herekittie-writes.tumblr.com/post/155235378026/a-hop-and-a-skip-and-a-jump-herekittie) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/herekittiew/status/815427110298796032).

It starts with a love for the space and stars, and ends in this:

“I’m going to the Galaxy Garrison,” Shiro announces one day during dinner.

Their aunt nods. “I would’ve been worried if you didn’t.”

“I want to go to the Galaxy Garrison,” Keith says.

Their aunt laughs, corners of her eyes crinkling. “Never expected anything else.”

* * *

Shiro goes first with a scholarship, so Akane doesn’t have to worry about his tuition. They see him off at the bus stop before the sun rises, amid other happy students and proud parents and friends.

“Take care of yourself,” Akane says, pulling Shiro into one last hug.

“I will.”

“Don’t have too much fun,” Keith says, standing off to the side, arms crossed.

Shiro laughs. “I’ll try not to.” He spreads his arms in Keith’s direction, expecting.

Keith has half a mind to stand his ground just to spite him, but it is a special occasion. So he steps forward and uncrosses his arms, wraps them around Shiro’s waist, and hides his smile in Shiro’s shoulder.

“Take care of Akane for me,” Shiro whispers.

“Of course,” Keith whispers back, and pulls back. Louder, he adds, “Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine.”

The bus rolls in then, screeching like a mad metal demon and cutting conversations short. The doors hiss open, waiting.

“Time to go.” Shiro hikes his backpack securely onto his shoulder, picks up his duffel, and falls in line with the other students.

“He’ll be great,” Akane says as Shiro gets on and shuffles to a window seat. She waves at him, and he gives a little wave back, before turning around and asking if a struggling student needed help with their luggage.

“I know,” Keith replies, pride filling his chest as he watches the doors close and the bus pulls away. “He always is.”

“You’ll be great,” she says, back turned to him, already walking home.

Keith laughs and follows. “We’ll see.”

* * *

The Garrison has a tough entrance exam that tests both academic skill and physical condition. While Shiro is a natural prodigy in both, Keith is a little lacking in some aspects. But those are simple enough to overcome. Study harder, train more. Easy.

It’s getting to the end of his current academic schooling that’s the problem, as Akane points out.

“Your teacher called again,” she says as she cuts the vegetables with rapid strokes. “How many fights are you going for this year? I’m curious.”

Keith bit his lower lip, directing all his energy and focus into tenderizing the pork with a spiked mallet. “He started it.”

“So you had to end it?”

The next blow is hard enough that his fingers go a little numb afterward. “He punched me first!”

“And you’re good enough to not get punched. You could’ve left.” She pointed her knife at him, then starts dicing the onions.

There is nothing to say to that. Yes, he could have left, but that wouldn’t stop the other guy from coming after him again. “It was self-defense,” he insists, pounding away at the cutlet. This is going to be the most tender piece of meat to ever grace their tongues. It’ll melt in their mouths. “Besides, he’s a jerk,” he mumbles.

“That’s not how the school sees it, and it’s definitely not how the other kid’s parents see it. You broke his nose, Keith. His nose! And how’re you doing right now?” She gestures at his pristine, uninjured body. “Self-defense isn’t going to fly.”

“…Shiro says you need to stop waving knives around.”

Akane narrows her eyes. “Don’t change the subject. And Shiro’s not here to nag at me, and don’t you dare tell on me either.”

“Then can we drop this, please?” Keith has to force the words out through his teeth, knuckles turning white around the tenderizer’s grip. He doesn’t want to yell at his aunt, he really doesn’t, but he knows himself and his temper. It’s still a work in progress. After a deep breath, he adds, “I’m trying. I really am.”

“I know you are,” she sighs, voice gentler now. “And I’m proud of you for it.” Akane sets her knife down and nudges Keith aside, prodding the pork through its plastic bag. “And I’m proud of your tenderizing skills. This is going to be good.”

Keith snorts. “Guess there’s a use for my temper after all.”

“If your pilot plan falls through, at least you can get a job in a kitchen.” She knocks her elbow into Keith’s side. “But it won’t, will it?”

“No,” he replies. “It won’t. I’ll try.”

“That’s my boy.”

* * *

It rains the day it’s Keith’s turn to board the bus.

Akane’s small umbrella does little to keep her dry, but she won’t leave no matter how hard Keith asks her to.

She coughs into a fist, and says, “You aren’t getting rid of me that easily.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he groans, stepping into the wind. He gets pelted with raindrops from head to toe, much worse than before, but better it be him than his aunt. Their hair sticks to their faces, plastered into place by the roaring wind. “It’s not good for you to be here.”

“A little cold isn’t going to keep me from seeing you off,” she huffs.

Keith opens his mouth to protest, but the familiar screeching of the Garrison bus’s brakes cut through the storm’s thundering.

Before he can turn around and say, “There, now can you go home?”, his aunt’s hugging him close with surprising strength, forcing air from his lungs.

“You be good,” she shouts over the howling wind and the hissing doors, over the racket of students scrambling to get onto the dry bus, “and you be great!”

“I promise!” He shouts back, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. “I won’t let you down!”

* * *

Keith keeps his promise for his entire first term. He keeps the fighting to proper lessons and sparring sessions, he tries to be at least cordial to his classmates, and he reviews a chapter a night, no exceptions.

He ends the term as the Garrison’s top freshman pilot and gets placed into fighter class, and Shiro sneaks him out of the dorms the day the results are announced to have a celebratory dinner with Akane, who squeals and yells and fusses over him all night.

It is the best night of his life.

* * *

They sneak out again the day Shiro learns he got picked to pilot the Kerberos mission. This time, Akane squeals and yells and fusses over Shiro, to Keith’s utter delight. His status as younger sibling meant the coddling defaults to him a lot of the time, while older-sibling-Shiro got to watch and snicker in the background, safely out of reach. Oh, how the tables have turned.

It is the second best night of his life.

* * *

Keith sneaks out the night the news announces the disappearance of the Kerberos mission and death of its crew. The words ‘pilot error’ runs through his mind, over and over and over.

His ears are ringing. His hands are cold but steady. His body brings him to where he needs to go.

Akane’s eyes are red and her cheeks are wet when she opens the door. The living room TV is on but the sound has been turned off. The newswoman has since moved on to other, less important stories.

“It’s not pilot error.” Her voice is soft and croaks, forced through a clogged throat, but it is firm and unyielding, leaving no room for doubt.

“Yeah,” Keith agrees, “it’s not.”

He doesn’t go back to the dorms until morning.

* * *

Iverson is well-known for being universally hated by every last student in the Garrison, but Keith had no personal beef with him. He kept his head down and worked his way up and hid his messes, leaving only a flawless report card behind him. The model student.

And apparently Iverson took great offense that the top student left Garrison grounds after curfew.

And apparently Iverson made the connection between the night Keith failed to show up for morning roll call and the night the Kerberos mission was announced missing.

And apparently Iverson thought of Shiro as incompetent and lacking and it was obviously a mistake to pick a rookie, and that this was a good opportunity for Keith to learn that rookies cannot be trusted, no matter how good they seem to be, and the only place where Keith could get the education and experience he would need to become a good pilot is at the Garrison, and the Garrison don’t look kindly on rule-breakers, get it, Kogane?

Keith doesn’t really remember what happened next, and the teachers and disciplinary officer never went into specifics when they were expelling him, but he knows it ended with a trashed canteen, bleeding knuckles, and a black eye and broken nose on Iverson’s face.

The first thing he says when Akane opens her door to him and his small bag of belongings is “I’m sorry.”

The first thing Akane says as she ushers him in is “Make them sorry.”

* * *

The thing about devoting yourself to one thing and one thing only is this: when you lose it, you lose everything.

Before, every waking moment was dedicated to keeping his grades up, keeping his skills polished, to enter the Garrison, and after that it was studying and training and learning all these new exciting things that will let him go up into space.

Now, there’s nothing. The job search is not going well. There are only so many chores to do. Getting to the bottom of the Kerberos mission requires resources he does not have. The need to move is strong and aches, but there is nothing to do.

Akane tries to help, but her expertise is in accounting, not detective work, and she has her own job to tend to. For the most part, it’s just Keith and Keith alone, haunting her house, lost adrift in the sea of his mind.

He never really noticed how quiet it can be.

* * *

The desert is an ironic oasis. When he’s on his cruiser sailing across the sand, there’s nothing to stop him, nothing to hold him back, and best of all, his mind finally quiets down and the restless itch under his skin subsides.

He’s on his cruiser now, in the desert outside town, under the blazing sun. Sweat rolls down his neck and back, staining his shirt, and the air blows across his ears and through his hair as he whizzes away, uncaring of the sand catching in his clothes and hair. The rush is addictive, the adrenaline pumping through his veins as he swerves and rides like the hounds of hell are at his heels. Thinking slows and ceases, overtaken by pure instinct, and finally, he is calm.

When Keith comes to, he’s parked in front of a cave.

He looks around him and recognizes none of the landmarks. He tries to remember when he stopped, but cannot. There is a hole in his memory he cannot explain.

But instead of feeling scared, it’s excitement running through him. It’s anticipation and exhilaration bordering on delirium.

He wants to move, he needs to move. The energy inside him is building and building and Keith can’t see an end to it. He feels like he’s a balloon filling up to burst. He hasn’t felt this way in a while.

There’s something here, he can feel it. Something in the air whipping around him, in the ground that seems to rumble beneath his feet. Something strange and ancient, and it’s calling out to him, filling the void in his chest and his veins with a bright sense of purpose.

“What are you?” Keith asks the cave in a whisper, and the cave _answers back_.

There are no words for him to hear and process, no body language for him to analyze, but he knows what it wants as well as he knows the stars in the night sky above. It bypasses traditional, bodily methods of communication (so slow, so inefficient) and speaks directly to him in thoughts and feelings inhumane but recognizable, understandable.

_Find me._

* * *

Keith buys an old shack in the desert with what little savings he had. He’s lucky the owners cared little for it and its land, and they offer a discount for the scrawny, wild-eyed teen that shows up to get the deed.

He hugs his aunt goodbye, and regrets that she cries, but travel between their house to the desert takes up too much of the day and Keith needs every second he can get.

Akane doesn’t stop him. “Knew it’d happen sooner or later,” she says, blowing her nose into a piece of tissue paper. “Could never sit still, the both of you.”

When the lift arrives and Keith steps in, she adds from her doorway, “There will always be a home for you here. Just remember that.”

The doors close before he could answer, so instead he says to the empty air, “I will.”

* * *

It takes only one trip to bring all his belongings to the shack, but there is work to be done before he can fully settle in. The old shack had put up with the elements for a good few years on its own, but not without injury. The roof needs to be patched up, the floorboards replaced, the plumbing fixed.

Restoring it will take time, but Keith has always been a bit of a fixer-upper, and it’s a good distraction for the times when the search isn’t going well and he feels like banging his head against the wall.

But he keeps going. He’s never going to stop until he gets to the bottom of this. He couldn’t find Shiro but this, he will. This isn’t lost to the cold and black expanse of space; it’s right there in front of him, waiting patiently for him to put the pieces together and come get it.

And there’s a promise in this too, he feels it in his bones.

_Find me, and you will be found too._


End file.
